Report: John Kelly's personal phone was compromised for months

The compromise, which may extend as far back as Dec. 2016, left his cell phone not working properly for months. He failed to report the malfunctions until last month.

White House chief of staff John Kelly’s personal phone was compromised for months, according to a new report from Politico.

The compromise, which may extend as far back as Dec. 2016, left his cell phone not working properly for months. He failed to report the malfunctions until last month.

A White House official told Politico Kelly used his government-issued phone for “most communications” since he joined the Trump administration, meaning it’s possible that some government work was conducted on a compromised phone.

In March, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent a letter to Kelly about the dangers of cell phone hacking.

News about Kelly’s phone being compromised follows months of headlines about President Trump using an off-the-shelf phone susceptible to hacking.

Trump carried out government business, including phone calls with other heads of state on his phone.

“First, there is the obvious risk of unencrypted calls, mobile messaging and Web browsing being intercepted and logged by hostile actors at the carrier level. Next, there could easily be censorship and monitoring capabilities in place on local Wi-Fi networks,” KoolSpan executive chairman Elad Yoran explained earlier this year. “[The fact is that] there are corresponding defensive technologies and steps to mitigate all of these stages.”

Politico found out about the compromise when White House aides circulated a memo about the incident in September.

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Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure